


eternity was in our lips and eyes

by victoriaandalbert



Category: The Magicians (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Ancient Rome, Alternate Universe - Historical, Anal Fingering, Blow Jobs, Fabulous Consul Margo, Flirting, Fluff, Frottage, M/M, Marriage Proposal, Nerdy Librarian/Writer Quentin Coldwater, Rimming, Roman Emperor Eliot Waugh, Romance, Smut
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-19
Updated: 2020-07-19
Packaged: 2021-03-05 06:00:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,504
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25389436
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/victoriaandalbert/pseuds/victoriaandalbert
Summary: When Eliot, the emperor of Rome, visits the province of Egypt, he is beseeched by Quentin Coldwater to help save the Great Library of Alexandria. But it isn't only knowledge that Quentin becomes utterly, devotedly passionate about.
Relationships: Quentin Coldwater/Eliot Waugh
Comments: 2
Kudos: 25





	eternity was in our lips and eyes

**Author's Note:**

  * For [stvrmhondss](https://archiveofourown.org/users/stvrmhondss/gifts).



> Hi there! This is a commission work for Not Alone Here's open market for Black Lives Matter causes, donated by lovely Franzi! She choose my favorite era of history as a historian/classicist - Imperial Rome - and asked me to make it slutty. How can you refuse? Here it is in two parts. <3 ALSO here is the comissioned gifset it goes with [on tumblr](https://juliacaesaris.tumblr.com/post/624108993291370496/eternity-was-in-our-lips-and-eyes-bliss-in-our).  
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> “Eternity was in our lips and eyes,  
> Bliss in our brows’ bent…”
> 
> Shakespeare, ‘Antony & Cleopatra’

“Dear God,” Eliot whined, curling up in his throne, head of curls leaning back against the marble, “How many more people do I have to suffer through?”

“Only but one,” Margo replied, fastidiously going over the gold edged codex between her graceful long fingers, “about the Great Library.”

Eliot sighed loudly. The emperor had been traveling the empire for the last year, and it had been wild and simply  _ exhausting _ . Seeing the world - _ his world _ \- was so much more than Eliot chew. They had traveled as north as the wet darkness of Gaul and gloomy cast of fucking  _ Britanica, only  _ to return to the mainland through the province of Germania with its hostile tribes, down through Dacia and Macedonia and finally into famous Athens, from where the imperial party set off on sail for Alexandria in Egypt.

Eliot was not a good sailor, and arrived in what was once considered the most beautiful city in the world sick as a dog. He didn’t even have the energy to see the tomb of Alexander the Great! Because Gods know Eliot quite admired the man, for  _ many  _ reasons.

But Margo wasn’t having any of his whining. She forced him, as she had to do in the other provinces, to perform his  _ salutatio _ to all important Roman citizens in the Roman Egyptian province.

The benches in the faded and mostly abandoned Macedonian Palace in the former royal quarter of the Ptolemaic Dynasty were filled to the brim to bring about business, salutations, and complaints for the young Roman emperor.

Margo, his imperial Consul, hand picked who exactly was going to get to hear from Eliot, narrowing it down to the most important peoples that served the imperial magistery.

“How exactly is a library of such great importance as the complaints of murder and lawlessness that I’ve suffered today?” Eliot realized, taking a sip of his Phoenician flask.

Margo raised her eyes at the emperor, blinking at him unbelievably. “Because he is the son of our governor of Egypt who is stuck putting down that Rebellion in Thebes.”

Eliot pursed his lips.

“Apparently people don’t like being dominated by another group of people,” Margo added indignantly.

Eliot smiled understandably at his closest friend and advisor. “Let’s get this over with then.”

“His name is Quentin Coldwater,” Margo added, before waving for a Praetorian guard to fetch the last of the clients.

Through the marble archway leading into what was once the throne room of the Greek queens and kings of Egypt, walked in a demure head, eyes flick around wondrously - even critically? - with scrolls bunched up in his arms.

When he came to the foot of the golden Ptolemaic throne, where Eliot sat in all his imperial purple splendour of robes, he forgot for a moment to kneel.

“Oh, damn, sorry!” the young man spoke frightfully, coming down hard on his knee and dropping all the scrolls in his arms right at Eliot’s feet.

“Fuck” he hissed under his breath, “I’m sorry--”

Eliot got up and helped grab the scrolls off the faded tiger skin carpet. 

He smiled as he handed one back to Quentin, whose eyes did not meet the emperor’s at all. You weren’t supposed to look Caesar directly in the eyes, but the deep crimson on Quentin’s cheek betrayed his embarrassment.

Eliot found it absolutely adorable. “So,” he began, not quite sitting back on his throne, “you came here to talk about...scrolls?”

  
When Quentin made the move to kneel again, Eliot stopped him. “There’s no need for that please. Your father is our revered Egyptian governor.”

Eliot recalled Theodore Coldwater only a little, they maybe had met once when Eliot’s adopted father, the previous emperor, had assigned him the governorship of the North African province. But Eliot didn’t think he would be able to forget Quentin had he met him, with those nervous velvety brown eyes and sweet smile and strokable floppy hair. Eliot almost wanted to ask Quentin if he could touch his light brown locks right there...

“Yes….Imperator,” Quentin replied. ‘I-I-I um, I am here to talk to you about the Great Library of Alexandria.”

Eliot eyebrows furrowed. He looked over to Consul Margo, who simply shrugged.

“You don’t have to call me imperator, just call me Eliot,” he replied coolly, now sitting fully back in the throne. “Wasn’t the Library, like, burned down by Julius Caesar?”

Quentin wasn’t sure if the emperor was joking about being so informal, but an exasperated look appeared on his face.

“No, it wasn’t at all!” Quentin sang out, sounding as if he were unleashing the fury of the Gods. Eliot’s eyes widened, but not in displeasure. “Caesar accidentally burned down a warehouse when he set fire to the Port during his war against Queen Cleopatra VII’s half brother, Ptolemy XVIII. The Library lived on with the patronage of Cleopatra, whose throne you sit upon now.” Quentin buttoned his mouth, fearing he had overstepped.

Eliot smirked. “Go on.”

“Well, a-after Antony and Cleopatra fell,” Quentin continued, more measurably, “the Library - which was the center of scholarship in the entire Mediterranean - began to fall into disrepair, and has been dying ever since. An empire of knowledge Rome let fall to pieces!” Quentin raised his eyes a little, but still did not meet the emperor’s lingering gaze. “The Great Library was where the greatest minds came for three centuries. It was built by Ptolemy Soter, who was a general of Alexander, who I know you’re fond of.”

Eliot smirked, leaning forward. “And how do you know that?”   
  


Quentin flushed, stepping back a bit. “I wanted to know more about you before you arrived. I could have opened a scroll on you in the Great Library but as is it in disrepair, I had to collect all of my info from different sources. But, um, like, if you funded the Library...I could write a scroll?”

“About me?” Eliot asked, a bit flattered.

“If you really, would j-just see it, my Lord, you would agree...I hope.”

Eliot thought a moment, flicking his eyes at Consul Margo, who shook her head furiously.

“I’ll meet you there tonight,” Eliot decided, standing up so fast the golden laurel wreath that graced his curls fell slightly over his eyes.

Quentin looked as if he had been slapped square across his face. “At the--”

“Library, yes,” Eliot said, pushing his diadem back in place. “At  _ prima fax.  _ Unless you’ve discovered a more accurate way of timekeeping.”

His smile was full of warmth and kindness, and it filled Quentin with a strange sweetness.

“Not yet,” Quentin said quietly, this time actually raising his sparkling eyes to the emperor’s. “Unless you command me to.”

-

“You’re going to  _ what _ now?!” Consul Margo demanded, almost ripping her hair out right there.

“Going alone,” Eliot repeated, taking off his heavy robes and snapping at a servant to hand him a cloak. “I’m going _ incognito _ .”

Margo put her hand on her hip. “You, you’re going to go incognito huh?” She pointed at the cloak the servant brought out. “It is literally fucking died in Tyrian purple. The expensive ass color of the Emperor of All Rome.”

Eliot grabbed it and swung it over his shoulders. “Whatever, Margo. Some vendors on the streets of the city could have fake cloth being made, we know that happens in our own city.”

“Only the Roman emperor is legally allowed to wear all purple, Eliot!”

“But I’m not wearing all imperial purple,” he protested, indicating his silk grey dress, “so it shouldn't raise any alarm.”

The consul growled. “You may be a well liked enough emperor, but many want you dead.”

“Oh dear Consul Margo, don’t start with me!” Eliot sang out, again snapping at the servant to bring his bag over. “I have an Empire of Knowledge at stake here.” 

“Your  _ real  _ empire is at stake,” Margo hissed, not so playfully swatting at the emperor’s face. “You do not have time to go shifting through a dead ass library all the fuck alone with no Praetorian guards because you think someone is _ pretty. _ ”

“Ok, but can we really trust the Praetorian to protect me anyway?” Eliot said, popping a grape in his mouth from the bowl of fresh fruit, “they killed emperors in the past haven’t they?”

Margo glared hotly at Eliot. “Yes, so have close advisors.”

The emperor grinned, walking over to the consul and kissing her forehead. They had loved each other for a very long time, since childhood they had been as one. Now, Eliot was chosen emperor, and Margo was running the empire.

Margo made a concerned face. “This isn’t a good idea, El.”

He brushed a stray curl out of her beautiful face. “What is he going to do though? Kill me with a scroll? Steal my purple cape?”

“Or steal your heart,” she replied teasingly, pushing Eliot on the chest playfully. “You loser.”

-

  
  


Eliot hadn’t seen the Library upon his entrance into the city; or, at least, he hadn’t been looking for it. But it was the very edge of Alexandria’s royal quarter, gracing the harbor with the Pharos Lighthouse rising as a fiery beacon in the background.

Though a magnificent and massive building, the Library was only illuminated by some lights in elegantly carved doorways and windows. Still though, Eliot was taken away by the east-facing marble facade of this once greatest treasure of the world, with its towering columns intricately decorated with portraiture of the Greco-Egyptian gods, acanthus leaves, and rinceau.

Eliot did pay attention in his art history lessons, okay?

When he walked through the Corinthian columns of the Library, he looked around the darkness and couldn’t spot Quentin. There was an array of seating between the shelves of scrolls and statues of the goddesses. The pretty wooden benches now dusty and deserted where the world’s greatest minds had once met a long time ago.

_ At least one does still, _ Eliot thought admiringly. 

He made his way through the long hall, until he reached another. When he looked up, there was a large staircase that led up two different directions to the second story. At its center, was a magnificent statue of Serapis, the Greco-Egyptian god created by the Ptolemies as a symbolic divine unity between the Macedionan Greeks and the native Egypts.

And right underneath it, inspecting its fading paint, was a very serious Quentin Coldwater.

“Quentin?” Eliot called out joyously, swinging his orange sack over his shoulder.

Quentin spun round, a loose strand from his bun falling in front of his startled face. His eyes critically appraised Eliot from head to toe.

“You came here dressed like that!” he cried out, ringing the scroll in his hands. “What were you thinking? You could have been totally robbed or something. Were you followed? Don’t you have guards? What’s wrong with you? It’s not safe!”

Eliot had never been spoken to like this in his whole life ever, except by Margo and Margo was a close friend.

But it actually….warmed Eliot? Because Quentin’s words weren’t meant to be cutting him deep, like Margo they were coming from a place of very deep concern for Eliot.

So thus, Eliot only smirked. “So the purple is too much?”

Quentin tried to keep his mug, but a smile broke through. He looked up at the emperor through his long lashes. “No, imperator.”

“Eliot,” the emperor reminded him, taking the scroll from Quentin’s hand and looking it over. “You’re taking inventory of the art here?”

“I’d figure I’d start there than with the scrolls thrown here and there like they aren’t those most precious material on Earth,” Quentin muttered, protectively taking back his scroll, and carefully placing it on the immaculate table where all the rest of his things were.

“You’ve done so much work,” Eliot observed, suddenly feeling totally out of place. 

Quentin nodded. “It’s not enough, really. We have little funding.”

“We?”

“My friends Julia, Alice and me,” Quentin said dejectedly, “we’ve been working here for almost two years and oh - found such incredible knowledge and poetry and literature! And yet, for over a century those in Rome in power left the Library behind in history, when it  _ makes _ history.” His face was getting flustered and red, 

and Eliot couldn’t help find it not only endearing, but incredibly adorable.

“What?” Quentin asked, when he saw Eliot grin.

“You’re _ captivating  _ when you speak,” Eliot complimented.

Quentin frowned. “Are you ever serious about anything?”

Eliot’s eyes rested on Quentin’s mouth. “You.”

_ That _ made Quentin blush.

Eliot smiled with warmth. “This matters a lot to you,” he observed admiringly.

Quentin nodded.

“I’m surprised,” Eliot began gently, “that someone as smart and knowledgeable as you hasn’t come to study in Rome.” Eliot took a step closer to Quentin. “You would be more than welcome.”

Quentin smiled sadly. “Well, my family--the last of my family is here. Or--was here.” Quentin hadn’t seen her father, Ted, in almost two years since crushing a rebellion in Thebes. “But anyway, truly, I have a lot of work to do here. If no one else will save something so important to our history…”

  
“Our history?” Eliot asked.

“Human history,” Quentin replied sentimentally, “not just the Greeks or Romans, all of us. This spot is where all of the known world’s knowledge would meet. The Great Library complex represents the blending of Greeks with the cultures of the Near East, Northeast Africa and Southwest Asia.” Quentin’s eyes were big, his face getting redder and redder still. Eliot had never seen someone so passionate about anything - especially what, Quentin had wholly convinced him, was worth saving. “Archimedes, the father of engineering worked here. Aristarchus of Samos proposed the first heliocentric system of the universe within these walls. Eratosthenes argued for a spherical earth and calculated its circumference. Herophilus – notable physician and founder of the scientific method also--”

“Quentin,” Eliot said tenderly, interrupting with some reservation (for he could listen to him talk all night and day). Eliot took the shorter man’s fingers between his, “I would be more than happy to be patron.”

Quentin looked up at Eliot through his long lashes and smiled ear to ear. His heals then lifted off the floor as he pressed his mouth tenderly to Eliot’s sweet lips. He tasted the honey of Eliot’s ointment, and drank him in headily.

“Q…” Eliot groaned happily, wrapping his arms around the shorter man’s waist.

“El,” Quentin moaned, pressing his body as much into the emperor’s as human possible.

He suddenly pulled back, though, and with an expression of embarrassment began to apologize for kissing his own emperor.

“No, don’t,” Eliot said, lifting Quentin’s chin up so their eyes met. “Do you--um…” Perhaps for the first time in his life, Eliot was speechless - who wouldn’t be in the midst of such beauty? “I think….you should escort me back to the palace so, you know, I don’t, like, get murdered, and all that. You know?”

Quentin smiled dreamily, nodding his assent as he throbbed between his tingling thighs.


End file.
